Video 15:26
Interview with Paul Keating

Transcript

QUENTIN DEMPSTER, PRESENTER: On advice from the Barangaroo Delivery Authority, the State Government this week signed up with the property developer and construction company Lend Lease for the development of the north-western shore of Sydney's CBD. Barangaroo is the disused container terminal where His Holiness the Pope had his open-air mass during the recent World Youth Day celebrations. Barangaroo is considered one of the most valuable city waterfront sites anywhere, and according to Paul Keating, chairman of the authority's design excellence review panel, a once-in-200-year opportunity to transform one of the greatest cities in the world. Shortly Paul Keating live in our studio.

For seven years, Paul Keating has used his formidable influence to crunch through the master plan for Barangaroo, treading on the toes of critics, architects, politicians and bureaucrats along the way. This is shaping up as one of the biggest public design debates since the Opera House in the 1960s and The Toaster at East Circular Quay in the 1990s. First, Sharon O'Neill looks at the site of the century.

SHARON O'NEILL, REPORTER: It's 22 hectares of prime Sydney real estate spread along 1.4 kilometres of the eastern shore of Darling Harbour. Known affectionately as "the hungry mile", it was developed and used as an industrial shipping port. But now it's vacant, just waiting to be redeveloped.

PAUL KEATING, CHAIR, BARANGAROO DESIGN PANEL: This is easily the grandest, most important waterfront development in the world.

PHILIP THALIS, HILL THALIS ARCHITECTURE: This is not in Sydney's best interests. This will alienate a significant part of the harbour for generations to come. This project does Sydney no favours.

SHARON O'NEILL: This is the proposed development for Barangaroo the State Government has now adopted. It's designed by British architect Lord Richard Rogers on behalf of Lend Lease. The design was originally submitted to an international competition in 2006 for the Darling Harbour site, but it didn't win. That honour went to a small Sydney firm of architects, Hill Thalis Architecture. Although there was no legal guarantee the winning team's proposal would be built, Phillip Tallis expected it to be the start of a collaborative process with the Government to develop the site. He was wrong.

PHILIP THALIS: We have never really received any sort of feedback from the Government about why we were excluded.

SHARON O'NEILL: The Lord Rogers design was favoured from the beginning by one of the contest judges, Paul Keating. He was attracted to the return of a more natural headland and the fact that more than half the area will be public open space. The former Labor Prime Minister is the chair of the design review panel for Barangaroo and he was determined to see the Rogers design proceed.

PAUL KEATING: This is density juxtaposed with nature. This is like Central Park in New York. You go along Central Park, you see these wonderful green open spaces and you see these huge phalanx of buildings beside 'em, right? This what you'll see here. You'll see rather than the buildings sort of petering out as they get to the waterfront, as is the case in all Australian cities, they tend to peter out as they get - you'll have these big standing buildings here with a park underneath it.

SHARON O'NEILL: But concerns have been raised about the project, especially the lack of transparency surrounding the decision.

PHILIP THALIS: It remains deeply shrouded in secrecy. We don't know the details of the bids. We don't know the terms of which Lend Lease are proposing to contract with the Government. We don't know why they won relative to the other schemes. We don't know how close it was. We don't know the financial difference between bids. We don't know anything, actually, except a bit of spin.

CAROLINE PIDCOCK, FMR NSW PRESIDENT, AUST. INSTITUTE ARCHITECTS: There would be a very good thing to stop the process or to pause the process right now, to get an independent group of people to review all the work that has been done, all of the first-stage design programs and all of the ones to date, to exhibit them to the public to get feedback from the public about what they like and don't like, find some common themes and let that inform the development of stage one as well as the brief for stage two and stage three.

SHARON O'NEILL: The most controversial aspect of the Rogers design is the inclusion of a 230 metre tall hotel to be built over the water. The decision to reclaim part of a publicly-owned harbour for commercial interests is, according to Phillip Thalis, unprecedented.

PHILIP THALIS: Which major city in the world is actually proposing such drastic intrusions into its harbour's waters? Where - is the City of London doing this? Is New York proposing, you know, buildings, commercial private buildings for profit thrusting into its harbour? Is Paris proposing to bridge the Seine for commercial purposes? No, of course they're not.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER, PRESENTER: Paul Keating, welcome to Stateline.

We'll get to design excellence shortly. Here's the deal in a nutshell: Lend Lease gets exclusive development rights for up to $6 billion worth of commercial, retail and residential floor space and in return the people of NSW get a harbourside public park of botanic gardens standard, infrastructure, cultural and waterfront amenities all paid for upfront by Lend Lease. That's the deal, isn't it?

PAUL KEATING, CHAIR, BARANGAROO DESIGN PANEL: That's fundamentally the deal. That is what normally happens in these things, Quentin, is the public - there's no civic dividend. You know, you have these big developments and the average member of the public can walk past someone else's apartment, they can walk past someone else's development, but this time they're going to see a botanical garden for Sydney to the west of Sydney, two great, big water inlets to what is now the concrete wharf and the most beautiful ground plain under the built part on the waterfront of the built part of the proposals, and of course building that actually have people, intensity, activation, things that are not gonna die a year after they're opened.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: Now, it's the done deal though. The public can't have any further say on this. You've signed the heads of agreement with Lend Lease.

PAUL KEATING: But the public's had all the say. First of all we had a design competition for concepts and ideas.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: I don't remember us looking at the hotel. I know we're gonna want to get to the hotel shortly.

PAUL KEATING: That it was all put out to public comment. The designs were at the Department of Lands down there in Macquarie Place for about two months, right? Then - so each iteration of this has all had public ...

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: You can follow it on the Planning Department website.

PAUL KEATING: Yeah, you can.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: Now, but, so where does this leave Mr Phillip Thalis's complaints? Now, I know he lost the competition and you worked with him for six months, but you fell out and he feels aggrieved; I can feel it, that he feels aggrieved.

PAUL KEATING: He refused the jury - the jury made decisions which he ignored, you see. Let me just quickly read 'em to you; I won't bore you with them. But they said - they announced Phil Thalis, they said in developing the scheme beyond its current concept, the jury recommends a natural headland which touches the water at the north, a large northern cove, a larger intervention at the southern cove. Phillip wouldn't do it.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: Because his concept was on this - this is the aesthetic sensibilities of the difference of opinion between you two about that edge.

PAUL KEATING: What he wants to do, he wants to keep the hard, linear concrete edge. In other words, if you put a bowling green lawn on a concrete flat top it's still a concrete flat top. It doesn't have a headland, it doesn't have water in it, it's not articulated. That is his view, but he wouldn't change his view. And see, the jury said this: they said the scheme of Richard Rogers' partnership Litman Associates alters the linear edge of the waterfront by taking new water bodies into the site. The jury was impressed by the vision of the three water precincts.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: And had he agreed to that, he'd still be on board.

PAUL KEATING: Yeah, yeah. He just completely ignored it. You see, the arrogance of it, the shocking arrogance of it.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: Well, can't you understand that he's aggrieved because he won the competition and you know what architects are like: they fight like billyo to get their ...

PAUL KEATING: They don't fight as hard as I do.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: (Laughs).

PAUL KEATING: That's the point. I mean, in the end, in the end he had a provisional win, but it was only for a concept plan. You see, the original - let me read you this. It said, "In launching the competition, the Government sought ideas and concepts." It said, "Each finalist in stage two would transfer the Government (inaudible), irrevocable license to use, adapt and modify" - use, adapt and modify. "The finalists and the winning design may be given the opportunity and the State Government reserves the right not to engage the winner." So, I mean, it's as clear as day.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: Alright, that's in the contract. Now - but the nastiest thing he's said about your concept, Mr Keating, is that it is a fake theme park. Assure us that it won't be.

PAUL KEATING: What would you prefer? A headland that looks like Goat Island, that remediates the massive vandalism of the Maritime Services Board in 1961; it just chopped it away and used it as fill to fill in Cockle Bay. What would we prefer? A sort of USS Nimitz, the aircraft carrier with the green lawn, you know, on the top - this is the Phillip Thalis idea. Or a headland that looks like Ball's Head, which Jack Lang reserved or Goat Island or Balas Point near it and water coming into it. I mean, in the end, if you run along this wharf at Barangaroo it just looked like a wharf in Rotterdam. I mean, you know.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: But this is not revegetated Aussie bushland, Australian bushland that we'd had here when Captain Phillip was here. This is - I'm right about botanic garden standard landscaping, isn't it?

PAUL KEATING: Yep.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: But robust for walkways ...

PAUL KEATING: But we've gotta do - this is the other technical problem with this, Quentin: when the basements of these large buildings are excavated, the soil has to go somewhere anyway. It either goes out by barge or by truck down Sussex Street or it goes into fill on the site and the obvious way to fill on the site is to recontour the headland. It's the sensible thing to do, you know? In the end, Phillip Thalis stamped his foot and we said, "Alright, Phillip. Next. Next." You know?

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: Well maybe he's not being treated like your arrivals in the Liberal Party.

PAUL KEATING: He's getting appropriate treatment.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: Now what about what you call Sydney's exclamation mark, the 60-storey, 230 metre five-star hotel on 150-metre concrete pier penetrating the harbour waters. Whose idea was that: yours or Lord Rogers?

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: But hang on, this is your gift to Sydney. You're fully - you've signed up for it.

PAUL KEATING: Oh, yes; no, no. What it does - if you look along - what we have to do is defeat the '60s vandalism, the straight line. You know, how do you take an area which is half the size of the CBD, and that's how it is, with all of the wonderful bays and shapes of Sydney and then there's a straight piece of concrete. What we have to do is articulate. Headland to the north, water coming in and then a public pier and hotel foot out to the water, so when you look along it, it has an articulated line which this hotel provides.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: We want to debate this - discuss this further. Let's look at the Photoshop image of this Exclamation Mark Hotel ...

PAUL KEATING: Well, first of all, the key view is not from Pyrmont Bridge. The key view is the main view. Coming around under the Harbour Bridge, north. That's what most people are gonna see, right? And even if you wanna see from Pyrmont Bridge ...

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: We'll show the next one - while you're discussing it, we'll show this next one. That's your corporate video.

PAUL KEATING: Yeah, that's it.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: So, go on, you're making your point.

PAUL KEATING: Well, it's just that, just that - why would the Herald go and use some digital company in Sydney to try and do something when they've got this material available from the Government? I'll tell you why: because the paper's coverage of this is intellectually corrupt. Truly, deeply intellectually corrupt. The Sydney Morning Herald's coverage of this has been disgraceful.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: Well, hasn't it got a touch of the Dubais about it?

PAUL KEATING: Nooo!

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: You hated the Woolloomooloo Finger Wharf. It was an excrescence of the face of Sydney, you said. You wanted it pulled down. Yet here you are signing off on a Finger Wharf with a 60-storey hotel tower stuck on it. Where's your aesthetic consistency, Mr Keating?

PAUL KEATING: Because I cannot teach you taste. Quentin, I can't teach you taste.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: Well it's subjective. It's subjective.

PAUL KEATING: If I had longer with you maybe I could do things with you. I don't know.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: Why is the Finger Wharf no good and this wharf ... ?

PAUL KEATING: Well, I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why: the Finger Wharf sterilises Woolloomooloo Bay. It's two-thirds the length of it. It should have been taken down. It was the last public bay left to the east of the Harbour Bridge. Instead of that, it's privately owned now and its full of loft apartments. It should always have come down. What this does, we're putting three hectares of water back which Phillip Thalis opposes, three hectares of water back with these two big scallops of water into Hickson Road and we're taking half a hectare for the hotel site. Three hectares of water go back, half a hectare comes out. Yet Thalis is out there saying, "Oh, this is shocking." He's opposed the three hectares coming in and yet he thinks it's a shocking thing that we're giving half a hectare to the hotel.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: Just quickly, the other procedural point to be made is that the Barangaroo Delivery Authority will have the power to approve or reject all building designs on this site. It's carbon neutral, latest green technology, but all the buildings are gonna be shiny, Shanghai modern inevitably, are they not?

PAUL KEATING: Well, this is a very important point. This is no remit just to Lend Lease to do what they like.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: Well are all the other architects of the world in Sydney gonna get a look in?

PAUL KEATING: Every single building will be approved by the authority, that is aesthetically, quality and what have you. Look, let's get down to the nub of this: Sydney would not normally have anything as good as this happen to it. Normally we muck these things up. We have all the boofhead planners in there, Treasury, planning, maritime, ports, and you know what they would have done? We'd have a row of KPMG buildings from one end of it to the other. I mean, this is rescuing a victory from the jaws of defeat basically. We're ready to take it. It will be, without a doubt, the most important waterfront development in the world and it gives - it's gonna bookend Sydney; we'll have a botanical garden to the east and a botanical garden to the west. We had no chance of getting it.